Mónica de Mattos, a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi.

Madrid, July 3, 2008. The following interview with Mónica de Mattos, a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi, was taken from the Spanish magazine “En Movimiento” from the May / June 2008 issue. Translated and reprinted with permission.

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Mónica. Brazilian. 33 years old. Her smile precedes her and proclaims Christ. That’s how the consecrated women of Regnum Christi battle life. Mónica de Mattos works with today’s girls, tomorrow’s women. She thinks, plans, and prays for every minute she spends with them. She watches over their games and their spiritual life. Above all, she makes each one feel special.  Behind every Alpes club meeting, there are many hours of work, a lot of hopes, and someone who is giving her life for others.

Are you happy?

Of course. He makes me happy and most importantly, he gives meaning to my happiness. It’s not a happiness of just laughing out loud (although I love to laugh…). Neither is it a momentary happiness or an immediate satisfaction. It is a deep happiness that gives peace, that is rooted in the certainty of being where God wants me to be, doing what pleases him. It’s the joy of investing my life in something that will last during this life and for all eternity. It’s a happiness of being with the one I know loves me, and whom I can love in return.

Tell me what it means to be consecrated...

Being consecrated means belonging to God. It means trying to imitate the life of Christ in this world, and show people that Love is stronger, that Love can overcome hatred, revenge, desperation. Being consecrated means being a witness of Christ’s love. 

How can love for God guide a whole life?

How? Well… by guiding. It’s as if you asked me: How do I learn to swim? By swimming.  Throw yourself into the water and start. I will give you some pointers, but if you don’t do it, you’ll never get there. I think it’s the same for God’s love to guide a whole life: You get to know him, you fall in love with him, you draw closer to him, you try to imitate how he acts, how he thinks, and you start to live your life as if you were another Christ. I know it sounds like a lot of pretending, but I said “as if.” That means I try to make my life a copy of Christ’s, and he guides me as I go. I don’t like to be the one who sets the style of how I’m going to live my life. I prefer to imitate the One who lived it perfectly, as God and as man.

What is the most impressive thing that has happened to you in your consecrated life? 
The most impressive thing for me has been to discover how Christ loves me so mercifully. He loves me just as I am and doesn’t ask for anything in return. He doesn’t demand more from me than I can give. It’s a total love, pure, committed.

Doing apostolate with young people is often like shouting in the desert. Tell me it isn’t so. 

I don’t know… I think that isn’t the best image. I don’t compare a young person or young people to a desert. They are pure vitality, fertile land, ready to be cultivated. This is the challenge: to sow the seed in their hearts and to help that seed to grow and bear fruit. It’s a process, sometimes long and slow, sometimes fast. It depends on the conditions of the land with its internal and external elements. So I don’t think of it as shouting in the desert, but of sowing in fertile ground and waiting for the fruit to appear.

How would you compare Brazil and Spain?
At bottom, it’s the same. Maybe the vegetation, the climate, and the geography are a bit different… The people are also different in their ways of acting and thinking… You know that the Brazilians are “all samba”… But the human heart everywhere seeks only one thing: to love and be loved. So, the environment is different. But the essence is the same.

What is God asking of you with the most insistence?
For Christ to be always the center of my life and of the lives of all those called to know and love him. And another thing: for us to pray that he send us many consecrated vocations for the Church. The harvest is ready and the laborers are few! Pray the Lord of the harvest!

What the Movement mean to you?
Regnum Christi means everything to me. What would my life be if I had not found the Movement, without which I wouldn’t have become committed to my faith? God wanted me for the Movement, and that’s what I’m here for.